Sheez! Lou seems to be quite the subject of lengthy magazine profiles these days. The latest comes from American.com, an article written by Luke Mullins. We were tipped off to it by MediaBistro-NY, with a title that grabbed our attention: “Lou Dobbs Once Tossed a Live Chicken Off a Balcony During a Movie.” If that’s not a grabber, we don’t know what is. Maybe we need to make our headlines a little punchier.

In any event, it’s similar to the last piece we linked to in that it’s a fairly exhaustive review of Lou’s upbringing and his life at CNN, the latter which has not always been met with zeal by his co-workers. Says Mullins, “CNN employees say that Dobbs has become increasingly controversial inside the network. His power is resented, and his extreme positions are mocked. His face on network monitors inevitably provokes jokes and eye-rolling from CNN staffers. ‘We all start banging our heads against the wall,’ one of them says.”

All we can say to these beleaguered CNN staffers is, “We understand.”

We understand.

Here’s a lengthy piece from the New Yorker by Ken Auletta on our favorite non-journalist, Lou Dobbs entitled, “Mad As Hell – Lou Dobbs’s populist crusade.” He used the Tom Friedman bit (didn’t credit the blog, maybe he was at Yale for the lecture), and quotes Wall Street Journal deputy editor Daniel Henninger as saying of Lou’s career conversion, “Old admirers are aghast. It’s as if whatever made Linda Blair’s head spin around in ‘The Exorcist’ had invaded the body of Lou Dobbs and left him with the brain of Dennis Kucinich.”

In any event, an interesting read, with some background on Lou and some thoughts on CNN’s turn away from news toward entertainment.

A good article by that title in New York magazine by Kurt Andersen. Says Andersen, “What I hadn’t realized until I recently started watching his show night after night was how completely and seamlessly he mingles actual news with opinion and straight-out tirade,” calling Dobbs’ show, a “Daily Show without jokes or irony.” We agree.

As Andersen notes in conclusion, “Populist anti-Establishment anger is now a major part of the CNN brand.” How sad. We wish CNN had a brighter line between news and opinion, and wish further that they’d make sure their opinions were informed and not just rabble-rousers like Lou.

WNYC’s weekly On the Media is one of the better NPR shows. Rather than pretending its public radio biases didn’t exist, the program embraces its smug liberalness with a joie de vivre and pretty smart interviewing. And knowing smugness, co-host Bob Garfield was the perfect interviewer last week to take on Lou Dobbs, who is comfortable in his own fame, brilliance and intuitive understanding of Middle America.

BOB GARFIELD: Now, [CNN] network president, Jonathan Klein, has said to The New York Times that, in essence, that the Dobbs approach will only be on the Dobbs show. And presumably he means that it would never fly on Wolf Blitzer’s show or Paula Zahn’s show.

LOU DOBBS: Well, they’re quite different people than I am, as you know.

BOB GARFIELD: I understand. But why should you have a different set of journalistic standards applying to you?

LOU DOBBS: Well, immodestly, let me say one of the reasons would be my experience, my education, my analysis of the issues and the empirical evidence, and a demonstrated record of, frankly, of knowing what I’m talking about.

Uh, huh. “Immodestly.” More of the same follows, with Garfield trying to figure just what value is of the on-line polls Dobbs conducts, and whether he’s a modern-day Father Coughlin inflaming the masses on immigration and other matters. Useful insight into an immodest host.

Also useful is the follow-up interview Garfield conducts with Andrea Batista Schlesinger of the left-wing Drum Major Institute. Ms. Batista Schlesinger is surely more hip to the reality of TV blow-hard shows than she lets on, right?

ANDREA BATISTA SCHLESINGER: So when I got on the show, he introduced me right from the start as a leading critic of his border control policy, and essentially the show went downhill from there.

The first question, and I don’t know if this is typical of journalists, but the first question was something to the effect of what’s wrong with, or doesn’t it make sense that? And that was basically, you know, the tenor of the interview, that he has the monopoly on what makes sense.

I mean, he was not interested in actually hearing what I had to say. He was interested in explaining what he had to say as if it were the most commonsense thing that everybody would agree upon.

I thought I was going on that show to have a serious conversation that, you know, weighed the pros and the cons of immigration policies that are on the table. Instead, I was a foil for a lecture on the difference between a Hispanic and an immigrant, which, as a Hispanic and the daughter of an immigrant, I found very enlightening. It wasn’t a conversation. I had about 30 seconds to make my case.

Well, that’s why you have a blog, Andrea. You know, like Rocky Balboa.

Thanks to a blog reader for sending us this article by C.J. Janovy about Lou’s trek to Kansas City — Middle America — in mid-October to hawk his new book. (As you know, for the record, we think it’s cheezy to hawk your own book in the course of your own gig.) Some real insights in this article:

“[I]f Dobbs’ sympathetic platitudes that night were any indication of the answers in War on the Middle Class, hardworking folks might as well save their money for this winter’s heating bill.

Backstage after the show, Dobbs [said] that his message resonated with people because ‘we’re reporting on illegal immigration, on failing public schools, on the high cost of free trade, on the role of corporate America and the outrageous cost of health care — all the American challenges…. We focus on the issues I think are critical, not on the so-called wedge issues…’” (Emphasis ours)

“Not on the wedge issues?!?” Crikey, this guy is a one-man flying wedge!

One of the many points Dobbs missed, had he decided to talk more about Kansas City than about himself, is that Kansas City is one of the first sites for the “Dream It, Do It” campaign. According to fellow blogger Bill Canis, Dream It, Do It, “Is a workforce and economic development program created by NAM and The Manufacturing Institute to help manufacturers find the skilled workers they need for expansion and to replace retiring baby boomers. In its pilot in the greater Kansas City region, Dream It, Do It advertising and community alliances increased applications to the local technical college by 35 percent. This successful initiative is now being launched in other cities around the country.”

Wonder how this bit of good news could elude Lou and his army of reporters? Truth is, if you only go looking for bad news, the great likelihood is that’s all you’ll find. It’s why every time Lou goes looking for America, he only finds more cynicism.

Here’s a link to a great piece by syndicated columnist Ruben Navarette, Jr. on our favorite guy, Lou Dobbs. The opening says it all:

“We really are two Americas…There are those who believe that what works against some folks are not the bad breaks, but bad choices such as dropping out of high school or ambling through life without ambition. And there are others who believe that human beings are at the mercy of sinister forces beyond their control. If you fall into the first category, you’re part of my America. If you’re in the second, you’re part of Lou Dobbs’ America.”

Lou is still stirring the pot with his “War on the Middle Class” schtick. It’s all about ratings and opportunism, pure and simple. He knows better.

As if Lou Dobbs’ partisanship wasn’t clear by now, he cemented his street cred with the Democrats in his latest salvo, his “War on the Middle Class” special earlier this week. (This also happens to be the title of his new pre-election book. For the record, we think it’s highly inappropriate and tacky to use your gig to shamelessly plug your own book.) Remember he did his level best to help failed Presidential candidate John Kerry with his steady drumbeat about outsourcing in those days, an issue that vanished once the election passed and Kerry went back to, uh, running for President.

In any event, Lou’s at it again, took some weird gratuitous shot at us along the way. (Doesn’t make a lot of sense from the transcript, but then he seldom does), but seemed to be making the point that we represent big business or something. Lou, fire your fact checker! Better still, hire one. Two-thirds of our members are small or medium manufacturers. And y’know what? They export their stuff all over the world, or they sell to someone who does. Not to ruin your day, Lou but know something else? Trade agreements open markets to their goods, too. Sorry to wreck your buzz. Hate to ruin a good story.

In any event, the non-partisan Business and Media Institute have documented some of his more blatant and partisan errors here and here. They only have so much time and space, can’t document ‘em all. Expect to see Lou in ever-higher dudgeon between now and Election Day.

In the discussions surrounding modern manufacturing in the US today, there are few terms as meaningless as “multinational.” Typically it is used by the black helicopter, Trilateral Commission crowd to conjure up images of a large faceless international corporation, frenetically packing up its jobs like so many widgets and shipping them all to China. If you Google “Lou Dobbs” and “Multinationals” for example, you’ll see tens of thousands of results. It is part of his lexicon, part of the imagined rift between classes that lie at the heart of his ratings.

Regular blog readers know we’ve written about this before, especially about how it is a term without meaning. When we think of multinationals, a few members come instantly to mind. We think of Sandy Westlund-Deenihan of tiny Quality Float Works outside Chicago. She exports now to some 10 countries, including China. Kendig Kneen of Al-jon makes big stuff like car crushers, sends them all over the world. No, wait — “multinational” only means that they have plants overseas, maybe. OK, makes us think of Stephanie Harkness of Pacific Plastics, a small manufacturer and one of the newest members of the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiation, who recently opened a plant in Bangalore. And we think of Tony Raimondo of Behlen Manufacturing in Columbus, Nebraska. He incurred the wrath of no less an expert on multinationals than John Kerry himself for opening a plant in China. Fact is, more people are employed in Columbus, Nebraska today — and the company is far healthier — because they decided to get in the global game.

But no, the Dobbsians say, “multinationals” are great big US companies who dare to do business globally — big multi-billion dollar businesses who have thousands of people and operations all over the world. Hmmmm…. Like Boeing, maybe? How about Case New Holland (CNH), the huge agricultural equipment manufacturer? Now they’d most certainly be “multinationals” of the sort that draw the ire of the Dobbsians, right?

And so we took a look at these two companies. Who is CNH, for example? Attached is a list of suppliers to the company to get you started. It lists some 1500 suppliers — mostly small and medium manufacturers — around the United States that supply them with parts for the equipment they make all over the world. They even have a website dedicated to telling their story about how trade benefits all manufacturers — and all CNH employees.

And what about Boeing? With almost 150,000 employees and about $55 billion in revenue, is there a bigger company worthier of the “multinational” title? But look at this fact sheet — for anyone interested in the facts. They export 70% of what they make. US suppliers (read: manufacturers) account for almost 80% of all their commercial airplane purchases. In 2005 alone, they paid over $27 billion to over 26,000 domestic suppliers in all 50 states.

Our boss — NAM President John Engler — is fond of saying that the line of demarcation here is not large vs. small, as we’ve seen over and over again. The only meaningful distinction is between those companies engaged in international trade and those who are not. At the end of the day big manufacturers are just a bunch of small manufacturers making stuff here in the good ol’ US of A and shipping it all over the world. And there are enough small manufacturers in the global game directly. We are proud to count all these manufacturers, large and small, in our membership, multinationals all.

We saw two stories over the past few days that likely would give our friend Lou Dobbs an embolism. The first ran in the WaPo last Friday, mimicked by dozens across the country that all touted the same theme, based on the findings of a new Pew study. Said the WaPo headline of the Kim Hart story, “Study Finds Immigrants Don’t Hurt U.S. Jobs.” That’s right. As counter-intuitive as this sounds, it happens to be true. We’ve also posted on it here on several occasions. “High levels of immigration in the past 15 years, ” says the WaPo story, “do not appear to have hurt employment opportunities for American workers, according to a new report.” This basically captures the first line of the study itself, i.e, “Rapid increases in the foreign-born population at the state level are not associated with negative effects on the employment of native-born workers.” Like we said, counterintuitive (especially if you watch Lou Dobbs) but true.

If that story doesn’t give Lou stroke-like symptoms, this one from yesterday’s New York Times by Daniel Gross most certainly will. Entitled, “Why ‘Outsourcing’ May Lose Its Power as a Scare Word,” it has some great nuggets therein. “Thanks to the forces of creative destruction,” it says, “more jobs are created and lost in a few months than will be outsourced in a year.” We’ve also been saying this all along as well. We wondered if they’ve been reading the blog when we read on:

“There is evidence that within sectors, lower-paying jobs are being outsourced while the more skilled ones are being kept here. In a 2005 study, Catherine L. Mann, senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, found that from 1999 to 2003, when outsourcing was picking up pace, the United States lost 125,000 programming jobs but added 425,000 jobs for higher-skilled software engineers and analysts.

Economists also point out that jobs and services that are tradable won’t necessarily move to lower-cost places. Ms. Farrell of McKinsey said that despite their huge populations, China and India lack enough university graduates with the specific skills and experience to meet the staffing needs of Fortune 500 companies.

In addition, labor costs are only one of many factors that companies consider. Executives have to worry about reliable power supplies and the proximity of vendors and customers. Here, again, the United States has significant advantages over countries like India and China. As a result, only a small portion of the jobs that could be outsourced will be outsourced.”

We can’t count how may times we’ve made the point here that we compete on this country not on wages but on innovation. We’ve also said numerous times that companies locate not because of wages but to be close to reliable energy and customers. Now, even the Grey Lady agrees with us. You don’t think they’ve been reading the blog, do you….?

No matter, we wanted to provide links to these two important stories that cut against the grain of hysterical media as embodied in opinionators like Lou Dobbs.

Thanks to our friends over at the Business and Media Center for passing this one along. Protectionist Lou Dobbs was interviewing Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), who’s just written a book entitled, “Take This Job and Ship It,”, so you can kinda guess where that one’s going.

In any event, Lou, not wanting to look too much like the fix was in (he’s lost all semblance of balance, not sure why he’d care) felt obliged to say about Sen. Dorgan, “Senator Byron Dorgan is no protectionist. In point of fact, he is calling for expanded markets for U.S. exports…” It struck us as the trade equivalent of Junior Samples interviewing Reuben Studdard about his new diet book saying, “Reuben is not obese…”

Well, we went and checked Sen. Dorgan’s report card and in fact he has a NAM Vote Rating for this Congress of just 38%. He has opposed trade promotion authority, opposed Chile, Singapore & Australia, Oman and Central America Free Trade Agreements — even though they all opened markets for American manufacturers. Not sure how one would define “protectionist,” but the good Senator is certainly not voting like a free trader.

And Lou’s probably not a very good litmus on this one.